Hungry People... Seeking the Bread of Life

Sunday morning in a little mud church in a village... where most are very poor.... and there is no clean water.....and where medical help is miles away. The Sunday Service brings people together....to crowd together on hard wooden benches..... to hear the WORD of GOD amidst the back and forth of tending to toddlers and infants.....

Sunday morning is a time of joy..... of singing as a choir...... of dancing to songs of praise...... of 'hearing' the WORD of GOD because few people can read. Sunday morning is a time to offer coins to a building fund for a cement block church....... a church that will have more benches.... and windows with screens..... and a latrine nearby.......

The Story of Joseph (the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat) is preached as the story of forgiveness of a man who wept, when many years after being wronged by his brothers, was reunited with them under God-planned circumstances. The analogy was to the civil war of the 90's in Mozambique when people saw family slaughtered..... What does the WORD say about forgiveness ...... about living your life without the weight of such justifiable anger?

In a village where over-the-counter drugs are unheard of, people stood and asked for prayer for toothaches, bad feet, lots of asthma, tumors, fever, abscesses, headaches..... so many babies have sores on their heads.....AIDS is just an everyday occurrence, so it barely gets mentioned.

Before dismissal the pastor addressed the issue of listening to the WORD with reverence......... coming to church is NOT about just singing and dancing...... but the learning the WORD of the Living God Almighty. ..... The church is growing - young adults are sharing with their neighbors about Jesus Christ....... He stressed that people must come to church to worship God and learn the WORD .. not to sing and dance with friends.

With no clocks or electricity the Service began later than scheduled...... and with no food to eat, there was no rush to get home for lunch...... Hungry people..... Seeking the Bread of Life they sit on hard benches for 4 hours in a little mud church in sub-Saharan Africa.

The day was very humbling...... very humbling indeed.
Blessings,
Lou

Lou Peryea is a short term missionary visiting us at the Ray of Light. This is Lou's third year working with the poor, orphans and widows.